Willmott Dixon publishes its accounts for the 12 months to 31 December 2015.

Highlights:

• Profit before tax & amortisation £15.8 million (2014: £25.9 million)
  
• Turnover at £1.33 billion (2014: £1.26 billion)
  
• Net balance sheet of £174.1 million (2014: £164.4 million)
  
• Cash and liquid investments at £80.2 million (2014: £76.1 million)
  
• Secured forward order book at £1.5 billion (at March 2016)
  
• 80% of Group’s budgeted work secured for 2016 (at March 2016)
  
• 5,000 homes in development for market sale and PRS
  
• Construction expansion in South West with new Exeter office
  
• £2.5 million invested in community in 2015*
  

Willmott Dixon’s Group Chief Executive Rick Willmott says: “It’s been rewarding to see our continued growth across all our core activities, although as we come out of what has been a tough period for our industry, this is reflected by slightly reduced profits compared to 2014.

Our people want to feel that they work for a company committed to making a tangible contribution to the well-being of local communities, and this is something highlighted by the £2.5m we invested last year in various community related activities that included improving the life chances of hundreds of young people.”

Operational highlights

• Continued growth of capacity, capability and ambition in Construction
  
• First lettings of our Private Rented Sector (PRS) product at Aberfeldy Village
  
• New development schemes secured for provision of homes for sale and private rent with a strong pipeline for the future
  
• Retaining Carbon Neutral status - unmatched by any other contractor
  
• Committing, through our work, to improve 10,000 young lives by 2020

• Fitting-out the new home for the world renowned Design Museum (below)

Talking about companies within the Group, Rick says:

Construction

Turnover £866m, 2014 £753m

Construction continues to be a ‘stand out’ business for us as a national provider of an exemplary array of built environment assets in public and private markets. Chief Operating Officer John Waterman has quickly stamped his mark and style on the company and is now turning his attention to creating a further outlet for our work with more growth geographically.

Much of our workload is generated through public sector procurement frameworks, established to ease and speed the delivery of cost effective public sector assets.

Construction has over 80% of its turnover for the next 12 months secured including a multitude of projects in the pre-construction phase, suggesting that the general construction market remains relatively buoyant.

Interiors

Turnover £74m; 2014 £74m

With shorter duration projects the ‘norm’ in the fit-out sector, our Interiors team has been challenged to respond by meeting two important targets - a fully secure order book for each following three month period and an 80% secure target for each following six month period. Inevitably this approach drives the need to include larger, longer duration projects in the portfolio of contracts, with the intended consequence of providing an ‘anchor’ and additional stability to a business.

The £20m, 52 week duration, project to re-fit offices at One Puddle Dock at Blackfriars for Network Rail is an example of a fantastic ‘anchor’ project for a great client. As is the £20m fit-out of the new home of the world renowned Design Museum in Kensington, a high profile project that will demonstrate extraordinary quality of design and material selection befitting of the museum and the listed building it will occupy.

Interiors is increasingly finding its workload outside central London, particularly so being a national framework partner on the ‘roll-out’ programmes of both Travelodge and Barclays.

The continued successful progress of Interiors is hugely encouraging; its predicted future growth in the South East alongside Construction’s national presence will see the Group’s annual contracting volumes in excess of the £1 billion mark.

Willmott Residential

Turnover £231m; 2014 £325m

“The recent grouping of all our residential activities within Willmott Residential underlines our serious commitment to grow in a sector where we can make a real difference in estate regeneration by accelerating the simultaneous development of homes for sale and private rent alongside our role as a volume contact builder of homes. The three elements of Residential, Prime Place, Be:here and Willmott Partnership Homes, provide scale, differentiation and diversity in the wider housing market; whilst at the same time bringing coordination, collaboration and synergies internally.

Our development businesses, Prime Place and Be:here, have become established in their respective open market sale and private rent markets in London and the South East and have the capability and track-record to deliver both products integrated within flexible multi-tenure developments. During 2015, we have added to our overall development pipeline, which now stands at around 5,000 homes.”

Support Services

Turnover £151m; 2014 £143m

“In February, we announced our intention to find a new home for Support Services that we believed would provide it with the best opportunity for future growth within an organisation that offered a greater support services focus.

At the time, I also said we entered this process with an open mind and a clear proviso that any acceptable outcome must, as a precondition, improve business prospects and successfully balance the best interests of customers, our employees and shareholders alike. Any new partner must provide an ‘added value’ proposition and if it became clear the Group remained the best environment to drive future growth at Support Services, we would continue to do exactly that – with renewed vigour.

The last few months have seen a thorough process to identify a potential partner for both Willmott Dixon Partnerships and Willmott Dixon Energy Services. Productive dialogue continues and a decision on the best way forward will be taken shortly.”

Looking to the future

“We’re involved in creating some fantastic projects of real national importance such as providing a home for the Met Office’s new supercomputer in Exeter, delivering the first phase of restoring the East Wing of the iconic Alexandra Palace and creating training facilities for future HS2 engineers. We also made a commitment to improve 10,000 young lives by 2020 through our Foundation which is eagerly embraced by colleagues across the Group while our focus on being a responsible business is underlined by retaining Carbon Neutral status - unmatched by any other company in our sector.

CGI of the building to house the Met Office's new supercomputer

Our residential ambitions have been further heightened by the creation of Willmott Residential and 2016 will see a real focus on using the synergies within our company to deliver a significant part of the Government’s aim to build one million homes by 2020.”